


to kiss in cars and downtown bars

by angree_baratheon



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: .....or COULD I, Angst with a Happy Ending, Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Mentions Of Infidelity, how could i resist a happy ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:13:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25997299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angree_baratheon/pseuds/angree_baratheon
Summary: Then again, the doctor adds. Hanahaki grows at a different rate for different people. Some flourish at its peak in two years and face its dire consequences sooner, some take its time. The longest case has been about five years and eight months before the person was admitted into an emergency surgery.Most cases disappear within the year.Aaron Burr wakes up with a cough. And it changes everything.
Relationships: Aaron Burr/Alexander Hamilton
Comments: 20
Kudos: 91





	1. vintage tees, brand new phone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **# —** I couldn't resist tacking a Taylor Swift's Folklore inspired lyric, so here you go. From, _cardigan_ , it comes from the bridge: "To kiss in cars and downtown bars, was all we needed; You drew stars around my scars, and now I'm bleeding." I feel like, in a way, as much as it was a love song, it was also tragic? And I find that appropriate? Yeah.
> 
>  **# —** Just so everyone's aware, Hanahaki Disease is a _fictional disease_. This is in no way reflecting any existing illnesses out there, and no way of me making light of the issue. It's simply an interpretation written for fanfiction. Chronic diseases could be triggering to some people, and, though it's fictional, if you're one of them, please continue at your own discretion.
> 
>  **# —** As an additional info: Hanahaki Disease is a disease triggered by unrequited love. Typically, someone who suffers from unrequited love or affection have flowers blooming from inside their chest. Specifically, it grows in their lungs. This varies according to authors, but the process of blooming could either be quick (within a few months) or longer (a few years). By the end of the stage, patients vomit a full grown flower — along with blood. Again, this varies according to authors and interpretation, but most of what I read, the patients mostly die from lack of oxygen than anything. Additionally, one way to rid of Hanahaki is by surgery: but once a patient removes the flowers, they lose all feelings — any form of it — towards the person they previously held feelings for. Why is why some patients decline the surgery. They refuse to lose the feeling.
> 
>  **# —** I think that's it? This might be a four-shot, or five-shot. We'll see. This is also my first time writing Hamilton characters, as well as my first time butchering what I hope is a passable American college experience for pre-lawyers and scholars. Cheers for me, and my recklessness into head-diving straight into this trope. I think the ghost of Hamilton ( _why do you write like you're running out of time?_ ) lives inside of me.

Burr wakes up with a cough.

It stings his throat, and it rumbles all through his chest — but for a while, that’s all it’s been. A cough. He didn’t think much of it, and thankfully, for the most part, it didn’t come as frequently to warrant any worry. Regardless, Burr is precise and quick.

At the first sight of trouble, he had long taught himself to curb it.

Cough drops and syrup were stacked just in case it returned. There are even flu medicines that he fishes out in case it turns into a two-day quarantine. Sally has always said that he’s slow and fairly resistant to cold and flu. He’s much better than his classmates like that, much easier to handle under the tense watchful eyes of their abusive Uncle and Aunt, knowing that the pair weren’t exactly rich in their bedside manners.

But once he’s got them, it’s hell.

In any memories he has, any form of what should be easily-manageable illnesses means days in bed, shivering and helpless. The worst of his memories were when he’s thrown up all over the floor because he hadn’t made it in time to the bathroom. It was 2 in the morning, and Sally spent at least an hour cleaning the floor after their uncle had yelled up a storm.

Another good thing is that, Sally assures him later, Burr snaps into health half as quick as the average time it would tend to take. Yes, it was horrible when he’d been infected, but his body is somehow shaped to react quicker. By the time the third morning arises, he’s usually all better.

This time, however, isn’t the case.

“You’re still not well?” John asks, brows tugging together in the way that shows concern.

Burr doesn’t know what the hell is happening. The cough is not consistent. Some days, he wakes up feeling like he’s been implemented a new set of lungs under his sleep. Other days, it’s as if his smoking days have been catching up to him. It’s terrifying, but it still happens scarcely enough that Burr doesn’t want John, or any other person, to look like that.

Though then again, that’s probably his fierce independent talking.

Burr is used to taking care of himself, used to managing his life and health and anything else on his own, especially after he and Sally part and they stop talking. Nobody needs to be concerned or mind him. Nobody.

Somehow cut from his thought, he hears a rambunctious laughter. His attention is turned, so are a few people, and he catches sight of Hamilton and the crew. Mulligan and Laurens are bent over chairs and tables, cackling from something. Lafayette seems pleased, his grin lazy but his gaze sparkling, like he’s told a piece of joke and it’s received successfully. Hamilton looks red in the face, smiling widely. He’s not really laughing, but Burr sure that he is, because his shoulders are shaking.

 _They ought to be quiet_ , Burr can’t help thinking. Even in his head, he’d sounded disdainful. Grim.

As though cued, a staff of the library comes over to hush them. She points helplessly to the closed and separated corner where students are actually allowed and are encouraged to discuss as openly as they can without disturbing the otherwise quiet atmosphere. Laurens didn’t seem like he’s getting it, tumbling to the floor, just as Mulligan wipes a tear.

Lafayette is apologising in French. Hamilton helps Laurens off the floor.

“Burr?” John calls him.

It’s not that he doesn’t hear Adams. It’s just — there’s always something so forbidden about watching Hamilton interact with… with anybody Hamilton has deemed he’s romantically interested in. Eliza. Laurens. And, if rumours were true, a Maria Reynolds.

Like a determined trainwreck, Burr knows he should be looking away, but.

“Hey, man, are you really alright?” John insists.

Hamilton looks up somehow, and their eyes meet. Burr feels warmth spread over his cheeks, and he’s furiously embarrassed. For some reason, it’s like his body is caught up with whatever event is unfolding. It releases a fury of cough that almost brings Burr unceremoniously to his knees. John looks more than simply concerned — he has to physically help Burr now as they find their way out of the library properly, potentially anxious that Burr could collapse.

“I’m fine,” Burr tells him, pleading for his body to be in control.

“I don’t think you are, Burr.” John Adams continues, patting his back.

“Burr…?” A new voice. One Burr could recognise anywhere.

He turns, partially, and Hamilton’s bright, worried eyes are on him. Unapologetic. Stupidly determined. Burr should’ve known he would follow them out. Even Adams’ presence — someone Hamilton has famously called out several times in his social media and loudly issued his complaints off in public about — hadn’t caused him to deter his steps. What a man.

What a stupid, ridiculous, brazen, beautiful man.

Burr’s heart is pounding loud.

“ _I’m fine_ ,” he repeats and he knows immediately he has to get out of there. He does.

* * *

He finally, finally goes for a check up.

He thinks he should’ve seen it coming. He didn’t see it coming.

It’s confirmed by the night that he has Hanahaki. And, if the estimation was correct, says the doctor in a long suffering flat tone, it should be about five to six months old. _Great_ , he remembers thinking. _It has an age_.

Then again, the doctor adds. Hanahaki grows at a different rate for different people. Some flourish at its peak in two years and face its dire consequences sooner, some take its time. The longest case has been about five years and eight months before the person was admitted into an emergency surgery.

Most cases disappear within the year.

Some cases, ones that they couldn’t prevent, they allow the flowers to take a hold of their lungs and they die.

Good thing is though, says the doctor some more, there’s a reason it’s called a schoolgirl sickness. It’s stereotypically common among schoolchildren, high schoolers in particular, that the observation for a lot of Hanahaki diseases wields a simple result: they do typically go away for a lot of the cases. The mortality rate is absurdly low.

Especially if it’s under a year? The doctor smiles a little. He’s a little worn, partially bald, and grey by the edges. Burr should find it comforting that he appears objective than any other type of emotion. It’s different from the nurses who were administering his X-ray. They all had worn with them a look of sympathy, of pity even. 

Burr should’ve known it, then. He didn’t.

I’d say your chances are still fairly good, Mr. Burr. However, if the coughing persists and any flower, even a petal, are expelled at any point, I would recommend you to come in and make an appointment soon so we could direct you to a specialist as soon as we could. If nothing happens, I still would like to see you in the upcoming month for a routine check up. Would that be alright?

The hospital floor is dull when he’s finally out of the office.

The medicine, for some astonishing reason, appears to be normal. Packaged in a paper bag, the inside are sealed packages of white containing the board of pills. Burr doesn’t know what to expect, honestly. Maybe due to the condition, he’d been… He doesn’t know. How does one combat an illness consisting of physical flowers growing inside your chest? Apparently with standard pills and a steady amount of fluid.

_This is for the headache, to reduce the cough, this will slow down the growth of the bud. Three times a day, after every meal, alright hun?_

Burr somehow finds himself back on campus.

By the time he arrives, it’s almost two am. He feels sluggish, exhausted, but otherwise eerily unaffected by the fact that he’s just been diagnosed with the one disease he never thought he’d ever suffer through. He reads buzzfeed accounts of the events, even watches through a forty-minute documentary tracing the origin of how and where it began during one of those spur-in-the-moment things within the exam period, but never…

Burr thinks he’s in shock.

He can deal with shock, though. He thinks, more than anything, he just wants to be in his thankfully single dorm.

Hamilton catches him leaning against one of the pillars on the way to his block. Burr doesn’t really notice the guy, which, if he isn’t suddenly affected by the bright lights, may count as an achievement. Hamilton is usually loud, his presence prominent. Even if he’d been deadly quiet and pointedly serious during his bouts of focus, typing speedily into his battered computer, Burr would notice him anywhere.

He comes to Burr as a voice, and for a moment Burr is transported to the first evening they’ve met.

_Pardon me, are you Aaron Burr, sir?_

“Burr.”

Burr opens his eyes, and Hamilton’s dark circles are prominent. He has a five o’ clock shadow, Burr notices. Worn and cosy in a sweatshirt, and hair messily pulled in a bun. The first time Burr met him, his hair was still tickling by his cheek. How time passes.

“You’re sick,” Hamilton’s voice is direct—no room for argument.

Burr feels his chest squeezes, and, as if proving Hamilton right, he buckles down at that. One hand grabbing his shirt in his fist, twisting it right over his heart, Burr trains his mind to breathe. In a split second, Hamilton crouches with him. Whatever bare conclusion Hamilton’s drawn, his manners grow beyond it.

He’s filled with concern now, and it drips over his behaviour. His intonation.

Hamilton cannot hide anything if he tries. Was this why people stop to listen to him? Was this why Burr is so equally fascinated and exhausted with him? “Hey, come on, can you stand?”

Burr coughs. “No, I’m fine.”

He’s not fine obviously, and Hamilton knows it. “Burr, please.”

He sounds sad, scared even if Burr’s hearing is right, and that - that sits wrong with Burr, somehow. Why should Hamilton be sad for him? Why should Hamilton care? Burr though he’d hated him. Dislike him, if not. After all, he’d taken Burr’s advice — _talk less, smile more_ — and thrown it back at Burr’s face with this same horrifying commitment that he’s given in any debate he’s saddled in. They don’t really talk much after the first encounter.

There was that one time when they’d been put together under Dr. Washington for a study, but…

“Just give me a minute.”

“Come on,” Hamilton’s voice is pleading. “I’ll help.”

He does. Hamilton is relentless, even outside the classroom or any yelling matches, because he barely wavers when Burr would stop and have his coughing fit. No, Hamilton pushes through, until they both arrive by Burr’s doorstep and insists that he sees Burr safely into the bed. It’s late, he’s had a full day, so Burr finds himself relenting.

“Are you sure you can really sleep in your jeans?” Hamilton sounds anxious when Burr finally crawls into his bed and wraps the familiar blanket around his shoulders.

“I don’t really care,” Burr tells him honestly and, usually, that would cause Hamilton to argue further. Then again, this scrawny kid with the beautiful wide, tired eyes could argue with anything and any point, but this time he only fidgets. He lets Burr settle further into his pillow.

The next morning, Burr finds a note that asks him to _text me, please_.

The handwriting is atrocious, wild and slanting. It’s so _Hamilton_ that it makes Burr go dizzy. He can also see a bucket ready by his head, and a glass of water on his bedside table.

The coughing starts again, and Burr knows.

* * *

To: Hamilton

 _Better now._ _  
__Thank you._

From: Hamilton

 _are you sure? i can buy you lunch, if you’d like._ _  
__are you still in ur room?_ _  
__you’re not replying._ _  
__are u getting ur sleep?_ _  
__i can come back for lunch_ _  
__i just have mercer’s class and i’ll be done_ _  
__wait for me!!!!!_ _  
__mercer is talking a lot but i’m not arguing as much back_ _  
__so i’ll be there_ _  
__do u think u can stomach down porridge?_ _  
__there’s this one thai restaurant thats only $ and they make_ _  
__nice porridges_ _  
__u can add chicken or beef_ _  
__or are u a vegetarian?_

To: Hamilton

 _No. I’m good._ _  
__Focus in class._ _  
__You don’t have to do anything else, Hamilton._

From: Hamilton

 _don’t be ridiculous_ _  
__we’re friends_ _  
__i bought a beef, chicken and vegetarian option_ _  
__just to be safe_ _  
__i’ll be there in 15_ _  
__make sure the door’s not locked? Xx_

To: Hamilton

 _You’re ridiculous._ _  
__I’m in no condition to greet guests._

From: Hamilton

_just make sure the door’s not locked ok_

To: Hamilton

_Okay._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **# —** Hamilton is a double texter, and you can all fight me. See you all in the next chapter!


	2. when you are young

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> or alternative title for this chapter would be: burr and his 1000 ways of denying his feelings. it's great.

He meets Hamilton on a rainy day.

Burr tells himself that, in and of itself, means nothing. He isn’t living in some sort of romantic comedy, so he should probably find some way to stop romanticising the cold of that day and the way Hamilton made him catch his breath at the sight of him.

“Pardon me,” Hamilton has startled him from his smoking break, “Are you Aaron Burr, sir?”

The thing about being a known prodigy is that — that’s it: he’s known. So, in all retrospect, Burr isn’t surprised that he’s stopped by people. That’s another thing to him that he’s made sure he acquires: a pleasing enough personality to be friendly, yet detached and separated to the point that everyone he knew were simply acquaintances and colleagues, and that is all.

But the point is, he’s stopped by people.

He shouldn’t be surprised — a little miffed perhaps, Burr secretly has never liked his smoking break to be interrupted — and yet Hamilton’s introduction sticks to him like mole. It’s mortifying at first, until he grows on you.

He has passionate brown eyes, circled with what Burr suspects are a result from late nights. What he does, at that point, Burr didn’t know. But Hamilton was young in this memory, younger in a way that his hair’s different and his skin is marred with blemishes, and he’s enthusiastic. He could hardly stay in one place, with the way he moves in his worn down, second-handed Vans, buzzing under Burr’s attention.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

He remembers this is the moment that strikes him the most: the way Hamilton lights up, the way he smiled, and Burr’s left speechless, if only for a moment, at the sight of it.

 _How can a person be so adorable?_ Burr is almost ashamed by the thought, embarrassed.

“That would be nice.”

And it was—for a while. It hadn’t even mattered that it was raining heavily that any vision past the five metre radius is bad. It hadn’t mattered that Burr could feel the tip of his fingers growing cold with each moment Hamilton filled their first meeting with thoughts after thoughts of topics growing from the price of the bus ticket that Hamilton finds unreasonably high, to the excitement of the classes he’ll be taking.

Until, of course, Burr ruined it.

“If you stand for nothing, then what'll you fall for?” Hamilton sounded offended, eyebrows tugged together heavily in a way that drips his disagreement. He had his hands curled into fists by his side — what an atrociously expressive man, what happens if someone uses that against you? — and it doesn’t necessarily take a prodigy to conclude that the meeting has gone south quick.

In another dream, another lifetime, Burr keeps his mouth shut.

Hamilton talks to him way into the night.

* * *

He sputters out a petal about a month later.

It’s blue, in colour. Dainty. It’s too small and too premature, Burr suspects, to be categorised fully as anything, so he tries not to find any meaning in it. There’s usually meaning in it. That’s what he reads anyways, in the article he finds himself going through whenever Hamilton hasn’t invited himself in with the excuse of checking up on Burr.

He should feel irritated. He _is_ irritated.

Most of the time, Hamilton comes in without any invitation or any form of forewarning. This all happens because, right after Hamilton has nursed him back (or so he thinks), Burr has made an implication that he’ll buy him dinner one of these days. You know, he had told Hamilton, as pay back. As a thank you.

 _Right after I figure out how to not cough so much around you_.

Burr hadn’t expected the other guy to take it as a green light to come and go as he pleases. He doesn’t hesitate to ask or start anything, Hamilton, the shameless bastard, barely waiting for Burr to respond, only to go on this long series of speeches explaining what triggered him into the topic, or what he’d been reading or was confronted with. He doesn’t care for personal space, Burr finds, often time way too comfortable in saddling himself near Burr, affectionate almost. Like they’re friends, almost.

Burr tells himself that they’re not friends.

They couldn’t be.

Acquaintances, maybe. They talked, and worked together briefly, but he’s certain Hamilton doesn’t think highly of him.

Not since the first encounter, not since every encounter after.

Burr is always stiff, and Hamilton, well, he’s not. He’s life personified, Burr thinks: he’s so full of it, everywhere he goes. Eyes wide, mouth quick, and his action a little reckless, a lot stubborn, but it’s alive. It’s lively. He takes up room, and he doesn’t apologise for it.

So no, Burr doesn’t think Hamilton favours him very much.

Hamilton, of course, proves him wrong.

“We’re friends?” Burr asks him one day, too caught off guard by an off-comment response, and he can tell Hamilton’s surprise by this revelation. He can tell because Hamilton is pouting and going on about the suspicion he received when Samuel Swartwout and Matthew L. Davis, few of Burr’s longtime colleagues, confronted him about the frequency of his visit to Burr’s dorm room and general company. 

_What are you doing with Burr,_ he could imagine them frowning. _He’s been slipping up in class. He hasn’t been showing up to the meetings_.

Hamilton stops in his long tirade after that sudden question, like he’s been struck across the face instead of simply being interrupted, and stares at Burr for a long time.

Burr can feel something tickling at the back of his throat. Maybe he should make that appointment soon. As much as he likes to pretend that he isn’t interested in what type of flower his body could conjure for his apparently deep longing for Hamilton, it can also be dangerous.

Like he said, he’d been doing some reading.

Patients of Hanahaki rarely die from the birth of the flower themselves. It’s the clogging that’s the problem. Certainly, there are cases where internal bleeding from where the roots have expanded into other organs exists. Though mainly, it’s asphyxiation. Lack of oxygen, suffocation. Drowning while being on land. He feels like that right now. Feels like that the longer Hamilton doesn’t say a word.

“I just,” Burr attempts to salvage. “I thought you hated me.”

Hamilton looks to the floor, guilty. “I don’t…” He answers, “I don’t hate you.”

“Okay.” Burr finds himself responding.

“I don’t,” Hamilton sounds stubborn, as if Burr has insisted on anything but him telling the absolute truth. “I mean, arguing with you is frustrating, you barely side with anything strongly, and while neutrality in itself is important in some cases, sometimes it makes me wonder where you really stand, and you know what they say about people who have nothing to stand for, like, where would your resolve fall? What are you fighting for in life? But, I mean…”

Hamilton pauses, heated for one moment, and then, voice growing small, as if the fire’s extinguished within one light of a motion. Suddenly, in Burr’s squeaky rolling chair, he looks nothing more than the bony kid in an oversize sweatshirt with his hand in a wrist brace, and mismatched socks. He looks young, untrained, hungry almost.

“...I mean. I don’t hate you. Or - dislike you or anything.”

“I’m sorry,” Burr finds himself responding, automatic. Hamilton is not wrong. In a situation like this, he’s easy to go for the road that leads quickly to it being solved. Apologising seems like the way to go. Neutrality.

This, somehow, seems to be the wrong answer for the other man. Hamilton’s shoulder tenses up. His eyes look uncertain.

“N-no,” he stumbles over his words. “I’m sorry. I should—”

It happens so quickly. For someone so skinny, _so small sometimes_ , Hamilton moves quick. Burr supposes that’s appropriate. He has that look to him that appears as if he’s ready to spring all the way across the campus in any minute. Still, one minute he’s content in Burr’s chair, the next he’s already got his wallet and keys and is heading out. It’s baffling.

Aaron Burr plans things well, you see, and he plans things meticulously. Aaron Burr _thinks_. He doesn’t just _grab_ a person.

But Hamilton—

“No, hold on.”

Burr tries not to think about the sleeve that he’s caught, how soft it feels, how thin Hamilton would be under. It’s not appropriate.

Hamilton doesn’t say anything.

This time, somehow his lungs clearing thank God, Burr breathes. “I’m sorry. Really. I didn’t…”

Hamilton looks at him. His eyes are so brown, so wide, it’s heinous to be able to look at them this closely.

“I don’t hate you too,” It’s the closest thing Burr could say to the mess of feelings he has acquired for the other man. He’s glad conversations are acceptable like this: stunted words and half-finished sentences. If he had to produce an essay each time he speaks, who knows what would require for him to properly explain how Hamilton has basically turned his life around. How Hamilton did more than just turned it, he had possibly shook it, brightened it, messed it up, and Burr hadn’t wanted it to be any other way, if he’s honest.

Burr hadn’t wanted anything different if it meant he could still hold onto that silver memory of Hamilton actually looking pleased at the presence of him.

_Rainy day, wet shoulders. He had grinned: I’m Alexander Hamilton! I’ve been looking for you._

“Yeah?” Hamilton asks, hopeful.

Burr burns. “Yeah.”

Hamilton stays. He also later sulks for about ten minutes when Burr accidentally insults Hamilton’s own rundown laptop after Hamilton suspects Burr’s being careful about insisting they’re using Burr’s Mac to watch _Dead Poets Society_. Hamilton, afterward, argues about the application of Mac vs. Windows through the entirety of them awaiting for the sushi they’ve ordered to come. It’s a little bit pricey, but Hamilton barely has them growing up, he told him, and Burr insisted that they try this new shop together. Burr somehow only coughs minimally through the whole process. They still watch on Burr’s laptop.

Hamilton cries as the movie finishes. It’s... adorable.

Burr finds another soft blue petal in one of his softer coughs, but hides them just as Hamilton strongly argues the reason why the scene is appropriate for waterworks (and it’s a complete offense that Burr just isn’t as teary) and why they should offer three stars to the sushi restaurant because they didn’t deliver the sweet sauce Burr requested.

* * *

The specialist tells Burr that it’s _Forget-Me-Not_. The flowers.

It symbolises a few things: True Love, Fidelity, Long-lasting Connection. Burr chokes on all three meanings when the specialist patiently tells him this.

The thing about the meaning, she explains, is that a lot of people misinterpret from which the meaning came from. Does the meaning represent the recipient of Hanahaki, or does it bloom according to the manifestation of feelings of the Hanahaki patients? Early researcher of the case argues that it’s the former. When your flower blooms, it blooms with the symbolisation of what the recipient means to the patient. If the recipient brings happiness to the patient, the patient will potentially vomit marigold, or blue daisy, as the form of the unrequited love they hold for the recipient.

In the late 1990s, however, a recent research revealed that it could possibly mean the opposite.

Rather than the flowers being the representative of the recipient, it actually reveals the connection the patient desires to _have_ with the recipient. In this case, the doctor explains with a calming smile, this is how you see the recipient of the flowers, Mr. Burr.

Does this make sense?

 _No_ , Burr would like to tell her, internally panicking. _No, it doesn’t_.

True love? Fidelity? Long-lasting connection? A deep feeling of not wanting to be forgotten? All towards… Burr swallows. Behind his eyelids, he could smell the faint of coffee that Hamilton carries with him everywhere. The smell of cheap coconut shampoo he wears every time he miraculously remembers to wash his hair. Hamilton is so peculiar.

How could this rag-tag, barely-awake, coffee-obsessed and manic academia personified have taken this much root in Burr?

When he’d been so careful? When he’d been—

It must be a lot to take in, the doctor continues. She has dark hair, and wide lips she paints pink with lipstick. It’s worn down. It must’ve been. It’s already past afternoon, the dary is near over, and it’s that detail somehow that's stuck with Burr. Shock, he thinks. He’s in shock. Again. As if he’s expected the result to differ, somehow. As if the doctor will tell him anything but what he’s already read and anticipated.

There’s no reason to raise any flags, the doctor — Dr. Florence — tells him, now clicking on the mouse as she reviews, what he could presume, is his recent chest scan. It’s still within the first year so your chances are not severe. The appearance of petals are well within what we’re expected at this stage. With proper medication, we can certainly slow down the progress of the flowering. Have you ever considered joining any of our consultation programmes?

It might help you well into understanding your feelings better, and we could assist you further into curbing the disease before it enters the next stage.

Dr. Florence gives him pamphlets. Lots of it.

He’s not sure a support group for Hanahaki patients could exist, but there it is. Every Tuesday, if he ever feels like he would want to join. 

Burr takes all the pamphlets and shoves it under, under, _under_ many folders of homework in the cabinet of his dorm room.

He won’t need them.

_I am the one thing in life I can control._

This disease won’t get to the next stage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Burr: ... oh. They forgot the sweet sauce I wanted.  
> Hamilton: brb imma fight a sushi restaurant


	3. they assume you know nothing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this chapter, burr pretends not to care. but he cares a lot.

For a while, the coughing goes down.

Burr tries not to celebrate too early—only because, in spite of the absence, there is still a thick tickle that he could feel lingering; there is still that heavy feeling he carries around with him—so he settles firmly with simply not acknowledging.

Hamilton stops frequently visiting too, fortunately, and that’s okay. Exams are right on their heel and as much as Burr has secretly been hoping that there’d be a sudden knock to his door or a text asking him if he’s feeling more Chinese or Western tonight for dinner, Burr gets it.

Burr encourages it.

Most importantly, he busies himself, as well.

He re-joins his study groups, and he makes sure to times his schedule right that he doesn’t bump into Hamilton necessarily. It still doesn’t stop Hamilton’s flurry of messages and/or texts whenever the man feels like sending it to Burr. Mostly it’s funny vines or youtube videos that he’s found—which, well, Burr’s sure no one really expects, so he asks Hamilton about it.

To: Hamilton   
_ Aren’t you supposed to be studying? _

And because Hamilton has sent him a youtube link to a compilation of a group of pandas ridiculously tripping over their feet or falling, he even adds—

To: Hamilton   
_ Fun fact - but pandas are born hairless and pink. _

From: Hamilton   
_ yes   
but i’ve also been awake fooooor   
what i think almost 50hrs???   
so pls give me a break senpai   
lmao ew   
thats still cute tho   
loaded question but would u rather carry a hairless panda   
in ur coat pass tsa at airports   
or would u rather just have an adult one   
but like   
this one u have to carry on ur back or smth _

To: Hamilton   
_ Oh my god, Hamilton. _ _   
_ _ Get some sleep. _ _   
_ _ And why would I want to carry a panda anywhere? _

From: Hamilton   
_ i mean??????????? who wouldnt????? _ _   
_ _ and no _

The last text is accompanied with a tacked on emoji where the expression is upside down, smiling rather tauntingly. Burr tries not to think too much of what it means, so he doesn’t.

(Except he does. And he googles it. And that’s how he lost about twenty minute worth of work and why Adams looked unsatisfied when Burr had come up relatively minimal for his part once the time for research is over. Burr tells his apology, but makes it up for handling the rest of the meeting with ease.)

* * *

He still takes his medicine, make no mistake.

He’s just—not yet spontaneous enough to not want to. Of course, the opportunity is there. The chance of him foregoing the pills are available for him to seize, and Burr has to laugh emptily in the bathroom of his dorm room because, even in the face of death, he’s still careful. What does that make of him, he wonders.

What would Hamilton say of him, if he’d known.

But Burr refuses to entertain even a slight of where that train of thought could go, so he usually sobers up, and takes his showers.

He stops wanting to know more, though.

He stops researching.

He stops  _ hoping _ for this miracle that maybe life wouldn’t be screwing him over.

Maybe it’s idiotic, even illogical, but the thought that if he stops pondering over it so much, this illness he carries might disappear does enter his mind. After all, Burr has worked so hard, and so far into his life, that there is no other future for him but to succeed. His parents’ worn picture from the newspaper clipping so long ago haunts him. It’s odd. He was barely two when they were in that accident, he’d known  _ nothing _ at that age, nothing of them if he’s honest, and yet — it haunts him the same.

What would his father have done? What would his mother do?

Sometimes Burr thinks about calling Sally. He doesn’t know her number—or the one he has, the one she slips to him right before she leaves the house, he’s scared that it might be useless, it was years ago, he was only sixteen when she went away, would she still have it? Would she have picked it up if she knows it’s him?

Or would she have the strong constitution to separate her past from her present as much as Burr is attempting to imitate at present?

Burr thinks back about Uncle Timothy and his awful, sneering wife. The cold of the house after Sally leaves, the heart in his throat when he knows, with a total absolute, that Sally won’t return. He thinks about his grandparents, the ones he could barely remember, how strict they’ve been, how they’ve emphasised on the legacy of what it’d meant to be born into their family.

_ Legacy _ , another point Burr wants to laugh at.  _ He’s twenty and he’s already dying. _

_ What legacy would he be defending in his grave, grandfather? _

His dead Grandfather, to no surprise at all, does not answer.

On a random Tuesday, Burr attempts a smoke.

It’s been a while. He should really stop it altogether, but there’s something enticing about walking to the convenience store to buy his familiar pack. There’s something routine about it, something that’s almost laughably safe even with the handful of warrants that come with each cigarette stick.

But hell, he’s been having a few weeks without his lungs feeling like it’s been set on fire, so Burr indulges himself.

Maria Reynolds approaches him half-way through.

She’s beautiful, really. All wild hair, and shimmering cheeks. Burr thinks he faintly remembers her from orientation—not the one where he’d been, but the one he passes through to casually check up on the rowdy newcomers. She’s got cheerful eyes, then. Her laughter was bright; Burr remembers she immediately turned a few heads just by entering a room. For him, though, he’d only been interested in her because she’d taken theology, a study he’d briefly dipped his toes into, before he decided that living behind his grandfather’s shadow was too much.

Not a year in, Burr had also briefly heard that she’d eloped with someone. She’s changed her last name since.

“You got another to spare?” She asks him now, serious. All trace of youth she embodies that first time Burr has ever set eyes on her is rusted and worn. Burr thinks there might be a trace of a fading bruise across her jaw.

He settles instead by offering her what she asks.

“You know Alexander, right?” She asks him suddenly.

Burr coughs, but he argues internally that it’s only due to him being surprised and the greying smoke he’s inhaling, not from the drop of longing he could feel expanding like a balloon.

Maria doesn’t seem unaffected by his reaction. Her eyes are downcast, her posture, all of a sudden, seeming uneasy.

“He talks about you sometimes.”

Burr doesn’t entertain her even if there are a thousand voices right now, all in various pitch, roaring from inside his head. His heart is pounding, and his ribs squeeze together. Burr feels a heavy itch travel up his oesophagus. He prays to the lord he doesn’t believe in that he doesn’t puke a petal. By some tiny grace, he manages not to.

“Aaron Burr,” Maria echoes, looking distant. “The future lawyer with no opinion. That’s what he says about you, you know? The genius with no stance.”

This time, she’s grinning like a cheshire cat, like she’s proud of something. Like she knows something he doesn’t. Maybe she does.

_ What else does he say about me? _

Instead, he goes with: “I know someone.”

“What?”

“I know someone,” he repeats, slow, tapping what’s last of his smoke under his shoe. Burr pretends he’s looking towards a building far off, licking his lips. “Who could help you.”

Maria tenses. Burr can see that she’s stepping back. “I don’t—”

“A divorce lawyer. He’s great. Reasonable price too.” Burr finally looks at her; she’s frowning. “If you need it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she looks away, she’s angry, but she’s also guilty. The cigarette in her hand lies by the side of her thigh, burning without anybody inhaling the end of the stick. It’s a waste. Burr tries to focus on that, and not the other burning question— _ what else does Hamilton say about me, why do you call him Alexander, how many times have you hung out with him, does Eliza and Laurens know about you _ —and fishes out a book. He tears a small piece from one of the pages, writes the address and contact from his phone.

“You can throw it away if you don’t want it, whatever.” He tells her, but he hopes that she doesn’t.

The paper is gripped in her skinny fingers, the cigarette still limping and unsmoked, and she looks at it now with - with fear, Burr thinks. With the whole reality of things being present in a scrap of slightly crumpled paper with dainty handwriting. As Burr saddles his backpack properly on his shoulder, he remembers an angry uncle with his fist raised. It isn’t pleasant, domestic abuse. He wouldn’t wish it on anybody.

Not even on a young woman whom he suspects now only comes to him to mock him, he thinks. Or to seize him up. In all honesty, Burr doesn’t understand why he’s approached at all, but he can at least discern that Hamilton has something to do with it.

That clutches at him, strong.

Burr, as usual, ignores it.

“Everybody deserves a chance at happiness, ma’am.” Burr tells her.

His throat tickles. In his head, Burr thinks:  _ what a fucking liar _ . Leaving her, Burr walks away.

* * *

Soon, it’s break.

Out of habit, and possibly sheer trauma that he refuses to address, Burr doesn’t make it back home to where whatever excuse of a former guardian his Uncle Timothy and his wife had become, lived. The last time they talked, Burr thinks, recalling back with this odd mixture of horror and emptiness, was when his aunt had refused to cook the whole day before Burr moved out. He had taken the bus with an empty stomach, but giddy, nevertheless, from the acceptance letter he received and his parents’ funds that he could finally have complete access to.

There was one time, Burr suspects, that a phone call had been from his uncle—the state code from which the number comes from certainly sends a shiver down his spine—but he’d rejected it even before it could become a possibility. After, for safety measures, he blocked it.

Burr spends time, for the most part, trying to breathe.

That may seem like an exaggeration, but what they’re advising on the internet isn't always gibberish. One of them:  _ distant could definitely help slow down the amount of coughing since it discourages the flowers from growing! _ And, well, yeah, he had said that he was intent on ignoring the problem, but—it’s still nice.

To exercise caution.

Burr thinks back about the longest known case of Hanahaki and wonders how that woman would have stood it.

He’s under a year, and some of the coughs were bad enough that it’d ringed inside his ears for  _ hours _ . It’d scratched his throat raw. He can’t imagine living with a literal bouquet inside of him. Having to withstand that kind of side effect from having a full flower living inside of him, and he’s dizzy from the pain and the lack of oxygen, and it isn’t even days. It’s months of having to navigate a life around it, it’s  _ years _ .

The only reason the patient with the longest amount of time to suffer Hanahaki finally conceded, as the report went, was because she feared she didn’t live long enough to care for her sickly mother, and even then, it’d taken her months to finally sign the agreement.

Of course, in the end, she was emitted into an emergency operation regardless.

She had started coughing and seizing up while doing her grocery, and an ambulance had been called in.

Somehow, more than any other statement, that scared Burr the most.

To be doing something so normal, so mundane — taking out the trash, reading in the library and studying, or even lying here, in his dorm room, going through his phone — and to suddenly having his breath gone right from him.

Burr shakes at the thought of that.

What happens if I pass out here? What happens if they don’t discover my body until days after, when I’m already rotting, when I’ve probably coughed up petals after petals of Forget-Me-Nots without even a warning, and they lay there, by my mouth like a vomit, and no one would have suspected, and  _ oh, he had so much potential, but he gave it all away for someone who didn’t care to love him back? _

Burr loses his breath, but this time he’s sure it’s more of a panic attack than Hanahaki.

A stray blue petal lands by his feet anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **# —** Actual Fact: Maria Reynolds actually turned to Burr to divorce her asshole husband. Not Fact: I don't think Maria ever studies theology, although she _does_ end up becoming religious late in her life. She joined a Methodist Church.
> 
>  **# —** Anybody else cried whenever Burr yelled his "WAIT!" and his voice cracked in _The World Was Wide Enough_? Just me? Ok.
> 
>  **# —** Fic rec time!!! One of my favourite modern fanfiction of Alexander and Burr has to be: [this series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/498925). Go check it out! They're already in a relationship so it's mostly fluffy shenanigans. I love it so much.


	4. chase everything, lose the one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is where i completely bullshit through the american college system, and it shows. no, please don't correct me; i'm doing this out of pure entertainment and amusement, with only 2% desire to have it be factually correct.
> 
> the dorm is inspired by my friend's dorm room in durham - where he has his own bathroom - cause i was contemplating the whole "shared communal bathroom" idea but then i was like ...... nah. so burr's got a pretty sweet (expensive) deal: he has his own room, his own bathroom etc. but i'd also like to think he's a scholarship student so the only expense he's ever really had to pay were his dormitory and food etc.

His luck, as he’s finding out, is super fucking bad because he bumps into Hamilton about a month into winter break.

And it freaks him out.

The school is desolate, save for a few students, mostly international and couldn’t afford a ticket back home or the ones who couldn’t care enough to leave campus, and there really isn’t any reason for Hamilton to be there. The last time Burr checks, on an accidental stalking spur where he devours Hamilton’s twitter feeds and finds out that he’s joining the Schuyler sisters uptown, Hamilton should be anywhere but around the area of their school.

But there he is, shoving dollar bills into the vending machine and later cursing when the machine spits his crumpled money right back out.

Hamilton, for the lack of better term, does not look good.

Whatever bright-eyed picture Eliza has posted right when break starts is gone. It’s as if Hamilton has lost his sleep for a straight week, and has forgotten to take the occasion shower and dress-changing too. His hair looks oily, frazzled, and he’s pityingly small in the size of the sweatshirt with a huge yellow-ish stain on the front.

Whatever cough that’s thought it would make its way up his throat halts, as if sensing Burr’s fleeting disgust at the lack of hygiene, and tumbles back down to where Burr has pretended nothing grows.

He doesn’t approach Hamilton that first time.

And that nags at him, the whole night in fact. The only reason Burr thinks he catches any sleep is because he’s exhausted himself with overthinking. Even then, it’d been restless, and he’d woken up not even four hours later, sluggish and irritated at the sound of his alarm.

Burr dresses up, though. He showers, makes his breakfast toast, takes his medicine, and is out to catch the early bus so he could arrive at his part-time job as a private tutor in time.

Two hours later, a hasty late-breakfast-but-early-lunch consisting of a quickly wrapped Subway that Burr finds himself picking the contents off because there’s just too much olive in it while he checks his email, Burr gets back to campus. By the time he arrives, it’s fifteen minutes to two in the evening and he’s nervous about bumping into Hamilton again.

He’s certain that if he does, he couldn’t just ignore the guy the second time around.

He eventually doesn’t _find_ Hamilton, and Burr should feel relieved by it - except he’s jittery and sleepy and now he has this newfound fear that Hamilton has somehow gotten himself into more trouble. Either that by initiating a fight somehow somewhere and were therefore arrested, or _worse_ (and it’s this _worse_ that’s got his nerves jumbled up; his coughing grows persistent, but Burr has just bought a new balm online that’s supposed to soothe his chest, so he puts it to good use) — Burr doesn’t know, but he doesn’t want to find out about it in an online news anytime soon.

Out of some pure miracle, he manages to obtain information on where exactly Hamilton is.

The pub is slow-going when he gets there.

After all, it has only opened for an hour, and the crowd doesn't get in, if at all during the break, till later that evening. Hamilton remains loyal however; in front of him, there are four empty shot glasses and he’s nursing a regular sized mug which he snuggles close, chin dripping onto the edge. He’s saying something, or rather slurring every word he’s spitting out, right at a miffed bartender, who seems intent on continuing his duty of wiping away spilled drinks and arranging all the bottles behind.

When Burr comes in, Hamilton apparently catches him. He turns, and Burr swallows back what he memorises as a full grown petal resting at the back of his tongue.

“Burr!” Hamilton cheers, and Burr swears, in that moment, it’s as if his illness was an illusion.

How can something so deadly exist, when Hamilton is that happy to see him?

Burr refuses to smile— _entertain_ —him back. “Goddamn, Hamilton.” He scolds instead, “How many have you had?”

Hamilton makes a cheer of counting, but it’s dizzying. Burr knows instantly that he’s too drunk for simple mathematics, coming up to a four, then somehow laughing to himself as he’s claiming that he’s drinking too little.

“C’mon,” Burr pulls out what he hopes is a reasonable amount of cash. “You’re going home.”

“No!” Hamilton argues, and there’s that fiery passion that Burr recognises; the one students roll their eyes at every time the tone comes out cause it would mean that the lecture hour would lengthen by at least thirty minutes.

Burr isn’t distracted.

The bartender counts the money, “You can handle him?”

Burr gives a tight-lipped expression, unsure but determined, and goes to snatch Hamilton’s slim wrist. Hamilton fights back, and he’s feisty like this—quick and relentless in his struggle to go against losing—but Burr is sober, and he’s steady. Soon enough, Hamilton dangles against his side.

Bitter by his loss, he even drags his feet. Burr refuses to give up.

“I don’t…” Drunken, the smaller man in his arms argues. “I don’t need t’be rescued.”

Burr’s ego bursts. He snaps, “Who’s rescuing who?”

“M’not… m’not an idiot.” Hamilton is stubborn, “I was _fine_.”

“A fine man doesn't drag his feet, Alexander.”

“You’re disappointed in me,” Hamilton hangs his head all of a sudden, whatever fight he has changed in its energy. He’s not particularly angry now, Burr can feel. It’s something else. A mourning, maybe. A sentence with a grudge, but there’s remorse stuck in it as well. A regret. “You’re mad.”

Burr holds his breath. His chest aches. He could barely hold a cough, but he answers around a sigh, “No.”

_I’m worried, you idiot._

He coughs instead, heavy. A petal — two, Burr feels — slips from his mouth. Hamilton takes the chance to stand on his own just as Burr turns away, a courtesy he’s found himself applying many times now. Usually it passes quick, Burr prays that it passes quick, but his whole upper torso hurts somehow.

Hamilton’s warm hand on his back, rubbing circle, doesn’t help.

He could almost _hear_ Hamilton swallow. “You’re sick again?”

“No,” Burr tells him, and he wants to elaborate, but his mouth is occupied. The cold air suddenly feels too sharp when he breathes. “It’ll go away.”

“Is it…” Hamilton hesitates, “Is it ‘cause of me?”

His voice is still slurred, ballooned with whatever liquor he’s consumed, but the full question of what he asked sits on Burr’s shoulder hot, like he’s been pressed with a metal that’s been heated red by fire. Burr almost stumbles, but he looks to Hamilton instead. Hamilton who still appears drunk, dishevelled in his thin sweater, and horrible unshaven face.

 _Is it ‘cause of me?_ He asks, so innocently, and a car might’ve as well driven off the street and impaled Burr for all the shock it gave him.

For a split second, he considers running.

He’s good at that; he’d run before, never successfully, dreaming of a life outside of Uncle Timothy’s horrible home. It’d be so easy to run, so simple to genuinely walk away. What could Hamilton have done? He’s drunk. He wouldn’t be able to chase after Burr if he tries, judging by the way he could barely stand still, staring back at Burr with this slow, sad blink, swaying.

 _Run_ , but Burr doesn’t. He shakes his head, and he lets the petals fall to the ground. Hamilton’s too intent on keeping eye-contact, anyway. No one would notice.

“N-no,” Burr tries. “Of course not. It’s just a little cough, Hamilton.”

For some reason, even when he’s answered with a denial, Hamilton seems to have had enough of the night; has had enough of the conversation. His face crumples up, broken and sad, and he breaks into a sob. When his hands come up to wipe at his face, it’s ugly — the movement. It’s raw and helpless and almost child-like.

It makes Burr tremble in his want to comfort.

He brings Hamilton home.

* * *

By home, Burr really means his dorm room.

Though, in all honesty, there isn’t much of anything else he could really consider his home. There was his parents’ house that he - that he never really knew what happened to. All he knew was that he ought to have spent time there during his toddler years - the only years he was allowed to have with his parents, he supposes - before they were caught in the horrible car accident, and his grandparents have taken him and his sister in.

Even then, whatever memories he has with the elderly couple is sparse and, often time, stifling. Burr thinks there wasn’t much improvement moving under the guardian of his grandparents to Uncle Timothy. There were just lesser evil.

His dorm room therefore is heaven compared to where he’s lived.

He can imagine how Sally could get addicted to wanting no contact with him, to wanting no contact with her past life. As a result, Burr followed suit. Now, he spends breaks private tutoring children whose family wanted that solidified grade, and filling the rest of the time making sure he hasn’t fallen behind. He didn’t think his simple schedule could’ve easily turned to this, though—

Hamilton is clutching on his toilet bowl and hurling.

Burr tells himself he won’t be tempted to hurl alongside the man from gag reflex alone, and goes to fetch a glass of water. By the time he returns, Hamilton’s whole face is red, but he’s settled down, leaning by the wall and attempting to flush. Burr comes over, pointedly doesn’t look at the content to which his toilet bowl now currently holds, and helps. The toilet flushes.

Hamilton watches him the whole time, teary-eyed, but somewhat sober.

There is more consciousness to the way he gazes; the same sort of awareness he would’ve held to the environment around him just for a chance to speak up on something or debate. Which, you know, is fine. Burr thinks he’d take that Hamilton any day, no matter how annoying that could be.

At least during those times, he’s not actively sobbing.

Burr feels his throat constricts at the reminder. He coughs, but before Hamilton could raise any questions, he passes the water. Hamilton blinks slow, as if he hadn’t expected to be offered water at all, and cradles it in between his two palms gingerly.

“Aren’t you—” He starts, hesitating, and Burr tries not to panic. _Hamilton never hesitates_. Wary now, Burr sits across from the other man - he waits. “Aren’t ya’ gonna ask me what happened?”

 _Yes_ . His chest jumps. _No_.

There are so many questions threatening to bubble up and spill over. Maybe it’ll follow whatever Hamilton has puked out right into the swirling toilet bowl. The weight of it certainly feels like it could solidify into something tangible as a vomit. Burr looks down, counts back from five, and manages to ask, “Do you want me to know?”

When Burr looks back up, Hamilton is silent.

Another flag raised: _Hamilton is never silent_. And now it’s making Burr anxious. Maybe it’s a bad idea after all to seek this guy out. Maybe he should find a way to shovel Hamilton right wherever he lived. Because - because the strain it’s putting on Burr, the absolute panic at this idea that he may just be rashed, is mounting up and—

Hamilton bows his head. “I fucked up.”

_How? Why? When?_

Burr says instead: “Okay.”

“I fucked up _bad_.” The clutch the guy has on the glass wavers. The water inside shakes.

“Okay.” Burr says again. “Drink first.”

“Why are you doing this?” Hamilton sounds so broken, yet still so defiant. He doesn’t drink as instructed; and his attention on Burr is stifling. Burr’s shoulder shakes with a new set of coughs - whatever bravado Hamilton wears fades away, just slightly, and it seems for a second that he wants to reach out. Burr puts up a hand before he could do it.

Thankfully, the cough is short. Burr focuses back on Hamilton.

“Drink,” he tells him again.

This time, Hamilton concedes - and he drinks. And he drinks. Until the water comes at only a quarter of the glass. If he’s surprised by his sudden thirst, Hamilton doesn’t show - quickly putting it aside in an order to bring his knees up together. Once again, he looks small; bony.

Helpless on the floor of the bathroom. Burr couldn’t help what he says next—

“Stay here,” he surprises himself. “I can lend you a shirt.”

Out of some miracle, Hamilton replies - short and near-stuttering. “Okay.”

* * *

Burr has an extra blanket and pillow.

And, from an unfortunate time when he thought the extra curricular could give him an edge, he owns a sleeping bag. He lays it all for Hamilton just as the guy steps out, a little fresher, in Burr’s worn _ASK ME ABOUT MY FEMINIST AGENDA_ short-sleeved shirt he bought during the time he was still actively participating at the women’s centre.

It’s in a washed-out, yellow colour of peach, and it nearly gives Burr a heart palpitation.

As if reading his mind, Burr’s chest seizes - and he coughs. At this point, it doesn’t even surprise him. Hamilton shuffles over and sits on the sleeping bag, eyeing the blanket folded on top of the pillow. Burr tries to focus on his phone, and not the fact that Hamilton might really be sleeping in his too-small private dorm room.

“I was thinking about ordering food,” Burr tells him after he picks a petal on top of his tongue and swiftly hides it in the pocket of his jeans, “Thai’s good?”

It isn’t until later, when food’s arrived, and Burr’s picking apart a prawn, that Hamilton blurts out in between his bites of pineapple fried rice: “I cheated - on Eliza. I went too far.”

Burr is quiet, suddenly having no appetite at all to continue picking apart his prawn.

He reaches for a tissue, methodically wipes his hands.

He doesn’t want to hear this - but he can’t escape this room. A part of him curses. Give it to Hamilton to corner him like this. Burr feels like vomiting, this time sans the petals.

“She was - with Laurens - she was already—”

“Hamilton.”

Hamilton looks up.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Burr shrugs, and it’s true. Hamilton certainly doesn’t need to know why, but if it helps the both of them…

“I didn’t know _why_ _I_ _did_ _that_ ,” the guy sniffles, now putting his plate of rice on the floor.

Burr breathes through his nose - constricting. “Well - you did. It’s done. No point destroying yourself further now that you’ve ruined your relationships.”

And, okay, ouch. Maybe he’s a little harsh, but Burr can’t help it. He chews his noddle angrily, and pointedly tries not to look sideways to where he knows Hamilton is either pouting or glaring at him. _Cheated_ . Jesus, Hamilton. His affairs weren’t exactly _hidden_ , but to have even _pushed_ what Burr assumes is an open relationship in the first place—

God, what has he done.

“You’re an ass,” Hamilton says with a bite, and he wipes his eyes, as if he’s resolved by something, as if he’s annoyed enough to want to scream at Burr and _leave_ , but Hamilton picks his spoon back up. He scoops up the rice and puts it into his mouth, full.

After a couple of minutes, he pipes up. “If you don’t want the prawn, can I have it?”

Burr sighs — almost fondly he fears, the flowers in his chest rattling happily the damned traitorous things — and drops the requested piece of food right where he can see Hamilton smiles, small, in appreciation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anybody else freaked out when hamilton was like "is it cause of me" cause i was 💀


	5. tried to change the ending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: so this is just gonna be a quick one-shot  
> also me: this has eleven chapters now
> 
> enjoy another burr panic ya hooligans

“So, what is it, really? Hamilton asks him at one point.

“What is what?” Burr asks in return, without looking up.

It’s been days now. Almost two weeks into this arrangement. It isn’t, Burr could say with his utmost ferocity, what he expects. Though then again, taking in Hamilton the way he had… He supposes he didn’t exactly have a long-term plan for the situation in the first place, but - to think that Hamilton stays, lingering about and only leaving to retrieve his share of pants and grabbing the second-handed Japanese futon he bought at the fair price of forty dollar from another student.

(Even then, Hamilton has fiercely defended it, it was more than he was aiming for when he walked in to negotiate.  _ Still _ , he grinned by the end, broadcasting Burr exactly how flexible the material is that it could be folded away and hence, wouldn’t be in Burr’s way, _ fifty isn’t bad, right? It was seventy dollar in the beginning, can you believe it, Burr! _ )

So, yes.

Hamilton is apparently his roommate now, lounging around and biting away at defenseless pens every time he’s stuck on a point during his bouts of writing inspirations. Which, Burr supposes, is better than the first few days where he’d just spent staring into space, sniffling, and sneaking away to drink.

If Burr had any inclination one movement done out of kindness could result in such a drastic change of routine, maybe he’d think twice before he’d done what he did.

(Or maybe he’d do the same damn thing all over again. After all, as much as he’s irritated with some of Hamilton’s wild habits, there is a sense of giddiness there which Burr refuses to acknowledge. He’s woken up every day with an expectation to see what else Hamilton will do, will say, will find ways to pull Burr into. And it’s - thrilling. It makes his Hanahaki curl excitedly, his chest vibrating in anticipation.

Burr suffers under Hamiton’s easy attention.)

Now, though. It’s too late to back out.

Burr is trying to hide a cough, his gaze however still trained on the study plan he thinks needs tinkering with now that he’s seen the kids he’s tutoring are slightly more advanced than he first evaluates. 

Hamilton isn’t deterred. Burr thinks he’s been on a twitter rant for a while now - he wonders what has made him stop long enough to ask Burr this inane question. It must be something that Hamilton thinks is important - otherwise Burr would like to compare the man to a bulldozer: relentless in his actions. Mindless of the effects it would cause other than the result that it would guarantee him, so he pushes on. He flattens everything on his path.

And then: “You’re still sick.”

Burr feels the world stops moving.

“What-”

“You’re—” Hamilton looks uneasy. “You’re coughing. A lot.”

Burr has to take a drink.

And he does that now. Drink regularly. It’s a part of the advice that he’s read online, the one that he pretends he hasn’t been attempting to follow —  _ and fails _ — in an order to loosen the strain he puts to his throat. Burr has never been particularly methodical, never been particularly a strict follower to drinking water, but now that he has increased his attention upon this habit, it takes him twice as long to get ready or to get to somewhere since he needs to use the lavatory twice as much.

It seems pointless, but Burr drinks anyway - if only for those precious seconds of relief.

“You’re not answering,” Hamilton is impatient.

Burr puts away the study plan, and sits. On the floor, on that damn futon, Hamilton looks atrociously young, mouth pursing right at Burr. The dark under Hamilton’s eyes have lightened significantly over the past week since he’s been forced to take a regular sleep schedule and that adds somehow, to the youth. Burr feels his heart jump, but he ignores it.

_ I have Hanahaki _ , Burr feels the response right there within his reach.

_ I have flowers growing from my unrequited love. You know Hanahaki, don’t you? It’s a fairly popular infection among pubescent teenagers, and affects only one out of fifty adults past the drinking age of twenty-one. Its period of growth lasts from a few months to five years - the later years being in its chronic stages, and patients are mainly feared to die from asphyxiation. It’s like drowning, Alexander, except there’s no water. And, anyway, if you get the surgery, you apparently would not be able to hold any feelings beyond a simple nonchalant attitude towards the person you previously had Hanahaki before. _

_ In some cases, you forgot them entirely. It’s the flowers, the doctors are debating worldwide. They’re connected somehow, to the place that holds the memory of the person you love. And once it’s cut, it’s over. And, this is the funniest part, Alexander - can I call you Alexander? - it’s you. My Hanahaki is for you. _

“It’s—” Burr says instead, “The doctor says it’s not going away. Not anytime soon.”

“What? Like, is it an infection?”

Burr smiles, polite. Hamilton’s eyes narrow somehow in suspicion. “It’s not transmittable if that worries you.”

“It—” Hamilton frowns, his body surging forwards - as if ready for an-hour long debate, until he catches himself while Burr takes another sip - and re-chew on his pen. Burr thinks he ought to buy the man more pen, or something else: something that could actually be chewed rather than plastic. “No. That’s not it.”

Burr can tell the conversation is not over, so he doesn’t settle back down, himself. He doesn’t pick up the study plan just yet. He waits.

“From where?”

Burr blinks. “Sorry?”

Hamilton mumbles a few things under his breath, looking uncomfortable that he’s so uncertain, so out of depth with what Burr assumes is his lack of knowledge in this matter. “From where - like, is it just - coughing, or...?”

“Oh,” Burr wills his heart to not drum so fast. It doesn’t listen. “It starts from the chest. The lungs, I suppose. That’s why it’s the coughing, mainly.”

Hamilton nods, slow - too slow - in understanding. “So… it’s pneumonia? Bronchitis?”

Burr smiles again, the practised smile he knows Hamilton is irritated by. “Something like that.”

Hamilton looks dissatisfied. He even looks angry. “What aren’t you telling me?”

_ Which would you like to hear, Alexander? That some nights I consider dying with this unconfessed love due to my ego, or other nights I cry knowing that one day I might wake up with a stitch down my chest and be entirely forgetful of you? _

“What else would you like to know?”

“Gee, I don’t know, a name to the infection, maybe? Some specification?” Hamilton demands, and he’s growing frustrated now, Burr could see - the harsh lines are deep between his brows, and he’s mouth twists together in a manner that Burr should find childish, but - it’s endearing, instead. A little annoying on a grown male adult, sure, but - endearing all the same.

“I’d like to keep it private, if I can.” Burr tells him after a while, hands folded together on his laps as if he’s resigned to his fate. And, maybe, facing Hamilton like this - a part of him already has. “The entirety of my disease. If you’ll allow me.”

Hamilton frowns hard. He stands up, and starts pacing - tugging on his black, long hair.

“Fuck you, man. Fuck you!”

“Hamilton, please—”

“No, fuck you, like, what is it, why can’t I know, what are you hiding, why don’t you - don’t I matter - don’t I deserve to know - I thought, fuck, I thought we were friends, so what is it, it must be - it must be something serious or else you would’ve just said it was a flu, or - or something - but it isn’t - is it cancer, oh god, it’s cancer, isn’t it, that’s why you aren’t telling me—”

“Hamilton,” Burr seizes him by the shoulder, and he looks up, this poor, young man. He’s only a few years younger, and the horror in the way he gazes Burr right back…. “It’s not cancer. It’s not - terminal.”

_ Not yet _ . But white lies. Burr is used to white lies.

Hamilton looks small, “...it’s not?”

Burr nods.

“Are you sure?”

At this, Burr smiles - nodding. “I was going to say that, while I don’t want to disclose, I can show you my medication. I can tell you what they’re for, and when I ought to take them, if that’s - if that’s something you’d like to know.”

_ If that’s something _ , Burr doesn’t say,  _ you think could help you _ .

The man must’ve felt like he had walked in blindfolded and hands tied behind his back. Burr doesn’t owe him anything, and yet…

“You sure?” Hamilton parrots his previous question, but Burr is already moving.

He unzips his bag and brings out the box of medicine. It’s pale purple in colour - the only colour the store had in store - with days lining up on each seven boxes:  _ MON, TUE, WED, THU, FRI, SAT, SUN _ . Burr waits for Hamilton to sit with him on his bed before he pops open one of the boxes, and shows each pill and what they’re for.

It’s better, Burr supposes, than if he’d shown the tablet in its bottle.

This way, the name of the pills could still be hidden; whatever illusion of privacy Burr is keeping could still be upheld. Hamilton won’t get names from these simple explanations, won’t be able to verify it through any quick google searches. He won’t know immediately what Burr’s been given, and why.

Yet - he’ll have the power of knowing all the same.

As if to prove Burr’s correct, Hamilton seems intent on listening: asking questions that aren’t, surprisingly, too protruding - but eager, nevertheless, to be aware of the routine.

“So, you’ll have to take them three times everyday, right?”

“Yes.”

“And it’s not - serious? You’re not - dying?” Hamilton seems desperate, his eyes wide and mouth turned downwards when Burr looks back. If nothing else, that spurs a coughing fit right out of him. He can feel Hamilton’s hand reaching over to rub in circles around his back, and his touch electrifies Burr throughout.

Burr shakes his head, “No.”

“Okay,” Hamilton seems satisfied, and watches as Burr puts away the medicine box down.

“You don’t have to-” Burr tries, putting two fingers against his mouth - maybe a physical touch can seize the hold of whatever his lungs are begging to commit out - but continues, “You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be okay.”

“Idiot.” Hamilton says instead, and Burr can’t help smiling at that.

That isn’t the worse he’s heard Hamilton has called him, and that thought alone… Burr doesn’t know why, but it’s profound. He feels a lot lighter. Hamilton’s calling him that, but he can hear - he can see - how Hamilton is still sitting close, rubbing patiently at Burr’s back.

_ I thought you hated me _ , he remembers his voice speaking out months ago - and how timid Hamilton had looked then. How surprised, but shaken he’d been.

_ I don’t… _ he’d said, frowning. _ I don’t hate you. _

“Shut up, man.” Hamilton tells him, “I ain’t going anywhere.”

_ The irony in that _ , Burr thinks, spiralling into another coughing episode.

* * *

So Hamilton stays.

By the end of the third week, Burr decides that they both have had enough of campus life and should catch a bus to the city. Burr doesn’t ask anything more about what happened that’s gotten Hamilton to cut whatever holiday he’s had planned short—at least, not more than what he had previously shared—and, in return, Hamilton tries to be a decent-enough roommate. Decent, that is, that he is functional enough to pick up the trash he’s accumulated on his own and is mindful every time Burr dashes to the bathroom to let out what Hamilton assumes are mucus during the harsher coughing fit.

Other than that, adjusting to a life together with Hamilton certainly fits with Burr’s expectation.

That is, just as he is in real life,  _ difficult _ .

Hamilton is loud—even when he shouldn’t be. His old keyboard clatters every time his fingers move across them, and Hamilton has no true concept of time. Granted, Burr thinks he’s trying his best to stay quiet in the beginning when he wakes up at four o’clock with this drive to write (and write he does, maddeningly), but he could also suspect that the effort dwindles the longer Hamilton stares into the screen.

In the end, Burr has to literally plaster his pillow against his cheek to catch what’s left of his sleep - and that, thankfully, works. Half the time.

Hamilton is also so,  _ so chatty _ .

It’s a constant noise when he’s around — either he’s complaining, or having a debate, or just bringing up an old topic that Burr has a fair familiarity towards, he’ll splurge on the opportunity to express his thoughts and opinions. Even when he’s simply standing to buy breakfast from their local cafeteria — not that the variety is appealing or, well,  _ various _ , considering the lack of students and therefore, demand — Hamilton hums. He taps his feet. He drums his fingers.

That hadn’t even covered Hamilton’s bad habit.

The chewing-on-pens. The tendency to ask Burr, despite his bright and praised intelligence, obscure and random questions in the middle of the night just so he would have a reason to not go to sleep. The whining, even, when Burr refuses to give in and pays him no attention.

Burr is also certain that his place has never been covered with this much hair before. The one time he confronted Hamilton with it, he’d at least looked half-apologetic. The next day, they clamber to bring the vacuum from Hamilton’s own dorm room, and they’d spent the whole day cleaning so that - that, at least, was nice. Burr’s very pleased with that day.

But yes. The other stuff.

It embarrasses Burr that he finds it stupidly charming for some reason.

He ought to feel rattled by these things — and he does,  _ God he does _ — but then he’s scolding Hamilton for walking around only in his towels to the point that his hair is half-dried just because he’s spent the past thirty minutes after a shower to argue upon Washington’s behalf on twitter, Burr is also… He feels this fiery sensation in his stomach.

Then, his coughing acts up and - well. The cycle continues.

“I’m gonna take you out tomorrow.” He says one night, right after he’d finished catching up with whatever Huffpost’s recent news was.

It’d taken him a few seconds of Hamilton blinking back for Burr to realise what exactly he’d said. That sends him into a flurry of coughing, and he can feel a soft blue — now soft purple under this light — petal landing at the centre of his palm. Burr closes a fist around it; Hamilton comes over, a cup of water gripped in his hand.

“I meant—”

“We’re going out?” Hamilton asks him over the rim of the glass just as Burr tries to swallow around a mouthful of cool tap water. He looks unfazed, as if Burr’s miswording means - nothing, and something inside of Burr squeeze painfully at that, more than anything.

_ It’s nothing. _ He thinks,  _ of course it’s nothing. _

“Yeah,” Burr tries to smile - it’s polite. He hopes it’ll pass as only half-sincere due to him still attempting to cover the cough. “And you’re not allowed to ask where.”

That, of course, instigates Hamilton to prod and poke him on where.

Eventually it’s the next day.

Hamilton cleans up, trading his worn hoodie for a nice-looking sleeved shirt and black pants. It’s tighter, this pants, Burr realises and Burr thinks he shouldn’t be as easily affected by anybody wearing pants as much as he is right now, but—

“How do I look?” Hamilton says just as he ties his hair up.

He spins. Burr’s eyes might’ve followed the stitching of Hamilton’s back pockets, but who could confirm. He swallows, clears his throat and manages, “You look nice.”

Burr, himself, is in a clean dark t-shirt, which he follows with a jacket, leather. Hamilton doesn’t comment on anything when Burr puts it on, but he catches him looking away the moment their gaze meets in the small mirror of Burr’s bathroom. Burr doesn’t think about it; doesn’t bring it up, and they both set out quickly after breakfast, paying for the bus and riding their way right into the city.

Hamilton seems excited, talking about the time Lafayette had brought the group out for what the French have claimed to be the best cake he’s tasted anywhere. And it really was the best, Hamilton defends, his face red, but he’s smiling, obviously fond of the memory - it’s exciting to watch.

It’s soft.

“You wanted to bring me to a  _ museum? _ ” Hamilton blanches when Burr announces they’ve arrived at their first destination.

“Yes, and it's a chocolate museum - of sort.” Burr explains, shrugging. “You could see how it’s made, and there’s tons of interesting history. You’d be surprised.”

Burr honestly doesn’t think it’d be a good idea to pump Hamilton full of sugar on top of - whatever energy that’s already driving the man, but — it’s better than the routine they’ve had. It’s new. And, of course, there’s something Burr’s hoping he could buy.

In the end, Hamilton had fun, and ended up splurging on an amount of chocolate Burr didn’t think he would hoard. “It’s for the guys,” Hamilton explains, the smile he has is tender, albeit it appeared hesitant if only for a moment. Burr wonders if he’s remembering the soured relationship he’s had with one member of his social group, or, well, two.

Or maybe it was  _ three _ , if Angelica Schuyler’s wrath on behalf of his sister is true.

Burr doesn’t say anything of course, and leads them for a quick lunch.

Afterwards, Burr introduces Hamilton to a bookstore that specifically collects unique and rare collections. Inside, there are even spaces for customers to read, with a small menu of a few options of tea and coffee, and three types of baked goods which could be served. Once they settle down, Burr urges for Hamilton to go ahead first -  _ pick a book, don’t worry about it, I can keep your candies safe _ , and there Hamilton goes, leaving dust in the place where he has only just been anxiously standing.

Hamilton ends up picking up five books to originally rent, sits down and goes through the first one just as their tea has arrived. Burr goes and picks up two books — one that’s to do with law, and the other an autobiography of a known actress whom Burr knows has broken the typical stereotype for not only asian roles, but a female asian role with dark-coloured skin.

The book is funny, the author is equally resourceful in her rendition of events without the content being too overwhelming, and that’s how Burr finds the both of them losing the concept of time after he tries stretching out his back only to find his clock has pointed to them sitting there for nearly four hours.

The day is almost dark.

Hamilton ends up buying all five books, and Burr, the two he’s chosen. When they’re riding the bus back, Burr is surprised that Hamilton doesn’t persist by continuing to read. Instead, he stares right in front, fidgeting - almost - in his seat.

“Was it good?”

Burr has almost missed his question. “Hm?”

“The book,” Hamilton gestures at the paper bag across Burr’s laps. “You were chuckling. A lot.”

Burr considers this. “Was I?”

Hamilton takes his time. “Yeah.”

And then, again, “So. Was it good?”

“I like it,” Burr tries. The thing about even admitting anymore truth than this seems too much all of a sudden. Burr understands why someone like Hamilton might be frustrated with these sorts of attitudes, with these vague reactions. After all, one could simply answer whether a book was a good read or it wasn’t without facing major consequences - to Burr, though, it’s… It’s almost frightening.

What happens if he endorses it and Hamilton turns to despise the book?

What happens if he lies? Surely, Hamilton would hate it even more. _Would hate him again._

So, he wouldn’t know if it’s good. One ought to give anything a try on their own to form their opinion, but for Burr - it’s satisfying. It’s worth his money. It’s worth his attention. He puts a palm over the shape of the book, covers it with his whole hand. “It’s funny. I thought it’d be boring, another celebrity talking about themselves, but…”

He allows the sentence to trail off, looking back to the scenery that the bus passes through.

Hamilton is quiet for a long time, until, “Maybe you could lend it to me someday.”

It’s suspicious. Any other time, way before this moment, Burr thinks he would rebuff that. He wouldn’t have taken Hamilton seriously. An echo of his confession returns:  _ I thought you hated me. _ But now…

“Anytime you’d like, Alexander.” Burr smiles, finding himself meaning it.

Hamilton beams right at him.

Inside, Burr’s chest flutters. For a moment, instead of flowers meant to kill, Burr believes it might’ve been butterflies instead. The same kind poems and popular songs like to reminisce about; the same kind Burr has read again and again in the literature Sally keeps under her mattress every time she could borrow it from a friend. The ones that were never there to choke him, but just - to exist. To remind him of this strong, powerful feeling that he’s denied for so long.

Hamilton is beautiful, and Burr is in love with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also!!! fic rec time!!! i read an amazing hamburr where they're both lawyers but alex forgot burr due to an accident and when he woke up hes like,,, a simp for burr,,,, like.... [please give it a read and support the author!!!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25686739/chapters/62364466)


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